The Work of Our Hands

In our way along the scholar’s journey, there often isn’t much time to stop and consider how the work of our hands is sacred. The writing of our theses. The questions we ask in research. The pedagogy we follow in our classrooms. Yet, all of these elements of our work are part of God’s world and God invites us to see them through his eyes.

So, what does it mean for the Lord to establish the work of our hands as we hear the psalmist pray in Psalm 90?  Especially when that work is scholarship?

Last year I began to explore this question more personally when I, with twenty-four other students, entered a doctoral program on the sacred art of writing. Within this program, I’m starting to think about the sacred work of writing more broadly. Not only writing with a clear religious bent but many other forms of scholarship – along with emails, reviews, and grants essential to this work.

First I rehearsed how writing appears in Scripture. God created the entire universe with words. Through speech, God revealed himself to humans. At some point, people wrote down these words and engaged with them as a way to know God. And, when God became incarnate in the person of Jesus, John describes this as the enfleshment of the Word. Yes, words and the writing of words have been a way God reveals himself to us.

As images of this word-creating God, writing also shapes our imaginations and beliefs about ourselves and the world; whether we are the ones writing or we are reading the work of others. In the early 1990s, the philosopher George Steiner wrote Real Presences in which he examined critical theories that dismantle the idea of meaning. In contrast, he argues that meaning exists behind any true work of art.

No serious writer, composer, painter has ever doubted, even in moments of strategic aestheticism, that his work bears on good and evil, on the enhancement or diminution of the sum of humanity in man and the city. (145)

Though Steiner is talking about writing and the arts, his comments can relate to scholarship in general. Such reflection can be done with every scholar’s unique work whether in mathematics, piano performance, or history. Here are some possible questions to get started.

• Where do you see evidence of God’s good creation in your discipline?
• Where do you see evidence of the fall in your discipline
• Peter tells us in one of his earliest sermons that the resurrection of Jesus has put us on a trajectory toward “times of refreshing” and “the time of universal restoration” (Acts 3:20-21). What do you imagine your discipline looking like when it is “refreshed” and “restored?”
• What does it look like for you to steward your studies/research/work as an opportunity to follow Jesus, to love God and neighbor, in a world not yet restored
• How does Jesus shape your work and the way you do your work?
• What “hints of hope” do you see in your work or your field right now?

Whether you’ve done this type of questioning before or this is your first time, I encourage you to seek out someone else whether in your field or down the hall to share your thoughts and ask for theirs.  And in this, invite God to the conversation.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90:17

(For an additional resource to help in this work, check out the Personal Liturgy for the Workday – Psalm 90)